


Your Mother's Son

by apollos



Series: The Waves Against the Rock [5]
Category: South Park
Genre: Brotherhood, Gen, Hockey, Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9798341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollos/pseuds/apollos
Summary: The responsibility of his team and his family is on Ike's shoulders. Ike knows this, and tries to do his best.





	

**Author's Note:**

> part of the reason for me writing this fic was trying out a way of characterizing through a different narrative style, so i tried to make ike's voice distinct from stan's and kyle's. please let me know if i succeeded.
> 
> this is probably the last "chapter" before the final installment, which will be the longest in the series.

where you been, cain?  
where you been?  
where's your brother?

[ your father's boy  
your mother's son ]

_cousin marnie, "cain"_

 

 

The game is rough. Ike's a fast skater, but so is McGuire, number 24, on the other team. Ike's the best scorer in the league, but McGuire's second. Ike is 5'10 and lean; McGuire is 6'3 and a paradoxically hard-hitter. The Avs have an old-school enforcer tasked with protecting Ike, though they like to pretend that Tucks can score some, too. He is in the top ten scoring defenseman, but, you know. He's an enforcer. He's after McGuire, but the thing is, the Predators know—everybody knows—go after number 17. Broffo. Ike Broflovski, who's been the face of the sport since he debuted at 17, an exception, the youngest NHL player ever. So Ike's skating in these short bursts, he's on every Power Play, and Tucks—number 62, Tucker, Martin Tucker—trails behind like a puppy. Good thing is that Ike's a dog guy, and he genuinely fucking loves Tucks.

So, the game is rough. Hard. Fast. Tucks keep him from getting hit, but there's always the thought. Ike scores two goals, one on the PP and one in the third period. The Avs win, 3-2, and that Ike's gotten the deciding goal is enough to make up for no hat trick. Not that Ike hasn't gotten enough of those to last a career, in the five years he's been playing.

His parents are at this game, up in the family booth, it's a home game, but he doesn't see them right away. There's press interviews—the cameras love him, even though he's still nursing a bruise on the side of his face from a training incident a few days ago—and then decompression with the team. Sometimes, after the games, Ike does Make-a-Wish stuff. Sometimes before. There's none of that today. There's congratulations from his team, though, and he tells them "Don't thank me, thank Tucks," and Tucks laughs and says, "Fucking right, man. But seriously." Claps on the back. Showers. Then into their suits, and then home.

Ike has his own house—mansion—outside Denver, but after home games he likes to go back to South Park with his parents. It's a tradition; it started when he was still literally living with them, only seventeen. Though his father, a dutiful sleeper, will go to bed immediately after they get home, his mother will stay up and make Ike's favorite foods.

Today, though, things are amiss. He sees their faces.

"We got a text from Stan during the game," his mother says. Ike's heart picks up. Adrenaline. He wants to move, the dodge the oncoming hit. "Kyle has tried to leave him."

A moment to process this information, and then: "Tried?"

Sheila shows the text to Ike. _kyle packed suitcase and threw it down the stairs. screamed at me. made it to the front door and then broke down and begged forgiveness. now asleep in bed. not sure what to do. he requested that you come see him._ Sent at 8:03 PM. Then, a few seconds later: _requested that 'the fuckhead piece of shit Ike' not come._

"He knows there was a game tonight," Ike says, after reading it. "I offered Stan and him tickets."

"He never comes to your games," his father says, and his mother gives him a look that clearly says _shut up._ It's true; Kyle doesn't, not often. Stan does, sometimes bringing his friend Kenny, but Ike knows it causes problems in their relationship. They don't tell him, but Ike's smart. He has to be, he's a goddamned captain of a hockey team, number one in the league in scoring. Kyle tells him these things mean nothing.

The thing is, Ike thinks: Kyle has always been an asshole. He's always been judgmental and preachy. He's always thought that his way was the right way. Kyle doesn't care about hockey, so hockey must not mean shit. Never mind that Ike loves it as strongly as he's ever loved anything. Never mind that Ike's made a name for their family this way while Kyle's spent years of his life doing jack shit, holding onto a business degree that means nothing. Never mind that Kyle lives to suck the life out of Stan, in whom Ike can see something giving way. Another thing: Ike knows how to read people. You have to. They have to move one way or another, and you have to move in response, to stop a shot or make a move.

But the point is: there's only so far that he can go claiming things like manic episodes and delusions of grandeur. At a certain point, that stops, and Kyle's just an asshole

But Kyle is his brother. Kyle is his mother's son. And so while Ike's parents drive home, and his dad probably goes to bed and his mother probably sits by the phone and works on whatever knitting project she's taken up, Ike drives to South Park, too, but to the outskirts, to the nice two-story house that Stan and Kyle own.

Ike isn't thinking about Kyle and Stan and their domestic drama as he parks his car and walks to the house and opens the door with the key that he owns for situations like this. He's thinking about Sarah. He met Sarah at a charity event; she was a daughter of one of the organizers of the charity; she was18, Ike 20. She was blonde, pretty, classy. The perfect girlfriend for a hockey player. But that was all she wanted to be, a puck bunny, and it wore on Ike, being attached somebody who just wanted to praise him all the time. Ike knows he's great. Knows that he has to be. He has awards, commendations, his face on shirt and signs across the continent. Tucks has been trying to convince Ike to meet his half-sister, but Ike is hesitant.

The house is dark, the only light the sconce that turns on automatically at the sign of movement. Ike makes a check like a soldier doing recon: living room clear, kitchen clear, downstairs guest room clear, laundry room clear, Stan's office clear, bathroom clear. So up the stairs it is, and in the little family room that surrounds the landing he finds Stan and a close bedroom door.

"I cleaned up," Stan explains, though Ike hadn't bothered to look for the wreckage.

"That's nice of you," Ike says. He means it.

"He's in the room."

"Of course."

But Ike doesn't go in yet. He sits beside Stan on the landing/family room couch. It's pointed at another television, this one with a PlayStation hooked up to it, that's blank. Ike has sat on this couch and he has played this PlayStation with Stan at the Marsh-Broflovski family holiday parties. Sarah has been to this house; she's given Ike a risky hand job on this couch. He doesn't remember what she said during it, but probably that he was the best.

"Was he really going to leave?" Ike asks.

"Guess not," Stan says.

Ike has asked Stan why he stays with Kyle before, and he always gets the same bullshit answer: I love him, I just love him so much. So Ike gets up off the couch, wondering absently if Kyle and Stan knew about the risky hand job, and then opens the door to the bedroom.

Surprise: it's dark. Surprise: there's a Kyle-shaped lump under the covers. Surprise: the shade on the window is drawn.

"Bro," Ike says. He thinks it's funny, Bro, for Broflovski.

The Kyle-shape lump stirs, but does not respond.

Ike turns on the light. "We gotta stop meeting like this," he continues.

This gets Kyle to poke his head out. Ike sees that he's shaved his head again, but it looks professional, no cuts. Still not a good look. Must not have been recent, either, because there are ginger patches coming in. All of this Ike takes in quickly, as he walks to the bed to sit on it.

"I told them not to send you," Kyle says.

"Mom and Dad are getting older, Kyle. They've passed the torch."

Things that go unsaid: Kyle is the oldest and Ike is the adopted son but Ike is the successful son and Kyle is the fuck-up. Things that go unsaid: Kyle is at fault of his fuck-up. Things that go unsaid: Kyle is an asshole. Ike acknowledges these things, considers them, does not act on them. Another one of his great skills: lickety-split-quick cost/benefit analysis and subsequent decision making.

"So, why'd you try to leave?" Ike asks. Kyle is laying on his stomach, everything but his head hidden by the blankets, and when he speaks it's into his pillow.

"This house is _stifling_ ," Kyle says.

"Talking into the pillow is stifling."

"Shut the fuck up, Ike."

Ike doesn't shut up. He remembers Kyle, aged fifteen, telling him that when Ike, aged nine, had made some buttsex joke about Stan and Kyle. He can't remember the joke, but he's pretty sure it was hilarious. "You know it's not the house, and you know it's not Stan, so what's the matter?"

A beat. Ike knows he's cracked the shell, waits for the yolk to slide from the remains.

Kyle says, "Craig and Tweek got engaged."

Ike has to remember who Craig and Tweek are. The infamous gay couple? They were in Kyle's grade, distant to Ike's life. Parse the information, find a solution. "So? You and Stan are married."

"But—I don't know! They live in Costa Rica, okay, they're doing all these great things, and Stan and I live in fucking South Park and had our fucking wedding ceremony by fucking Stark's Pond."

Ike thinks about what to say to that. The way Kyle talks is ridiculous sometimes, grating. "Stark's Pond is beautiful and meaningful to you and Stan," he says. "Costa Rica is just some place, some place where people who _think_ they're rich go to vacation. Why do you even care about Craig and Tweek?"

"Stan cares."

"And you care about Stan."

"Of course." Kyle lifts his head to glare at him. Ike forces back a smile: progress. The yolk is in the batter.

"You love Stan," Ike continues.

"Obviously."

"He loves you."

Kyle doesn't even justify that with a response, just the intensity of his eyes. They're not red-rimmed, which is good. He hasn't been crying.

"That's all you need," Ike says. "All you need is love."

But that's not true. And lying isn't a skill of Ike's.

"You know that's bullshit," Kyle says. He cites an example: "Sarah."

"I didn't love Sarah," Ike says immediately. His skills are irrelevant, because he doesn't know if that's a lie or not.

"Whatever." Kyle rolls onto his back, and Ike could get up and dance. Sometimes he can't even get Kyle out from under the covers.

"I won today," Ike says, more to his hands than to Kyle. "3-2. I got the deciding goal."

"Is that how you get the bruise?"

"This thing?" Ike raises a hand to his cheek and smiles. "No. At practice."

"Oh."

"It's a physical sport, you know."

"But you have that guy—" Kyle pauses, and Ike wonders if he really can't remember or if he's only pretending. Kyle has met Tucks. Several times. "Tucks." Kyle remembers, that asshole.

"He doesn't protect me at practice," Ike says, laughing at the idea. "It was just puck drills. Marker's—Markovich's puck went off the drill and got me in the side of the helmet. I'm lucky." Ike knocks a closed fist against his head. Guys have gotten concussions from less.

"So dangerous," Kyle says, maybe concernedly, maybe disapprovingly, or maybe just totally out of it. Ike knows that when he leaves, Kyle will sleep for hours and hours, and Stan will probably still be sitting on that fucking couch.

"Are you dressed?" Ike chances. He's become aware that he's wearing a two-thousand-dollar tailored suit, a fucking pocket square folded over his breast. He looks great; Sarah would have told him this, awe in her eyes.

"No," Kyle says. "Just underwear."

"Want to get dressed and go out for dinner?" Try as he might, Ike can't keep the hope out. It doesn't reach his voice, but it probably reaches his eyes, which he can't take away from Kyle. When they were boys, they used to sleep in the same bed, sometimes. Their mother always pretended to be upset in the morning, saying that Ike needed to learn independence, but there's pictures in the family album of Ike tucked under Kyle's arm, up until Kyle hit surly teenagerhood and Ike decided he didn't need him anymore. But—but—but—

"No," Kyle says.

"We should set a date," Ike says. "I'm leaving tomorrow to go to Florida, and we have a few games on the road, but I'll be home a week from Sunday. It's after a double, so I'll have more time off. I can take you and Stan to this place in Denver." Then, thinking: "Or just you, if you'd like."

Honestly, Ike would fly Kyle and Stan out for the whole road trip and pay for their hotels and their couples' massages and their shopping if Kyle would just get out of bed. Throwing money at things works in some regards, and can be seen as honorable in others, and Ike has more than enough money to spare, but Ike could sign over his fucking bank account to Kyle and it wouldn't change a thing.

Sheila always said her boys were too smart for their own good.

Kyle denies Ike's offer.

It's quiet in the room. The ceiling fan swirls above, keeping Ike cool in his suit, keeping white noise boxed inside like bees in a beehive.

"Look," Ike says, finally. Kyle looks. "Something has to change."

"Obviously."

"Have you been taking your medicine?" Ike has seen the bedside table, and there's nothing there.

"They make me feel weird," Kyle says. "I can't concentrate when I'm on them, I don't want to do anything."

"Have you brought that up to the doctor?"

"The fuck is the point, Ike?"

What is the point? What a great question. The point is that if he gives Stan bad news, if he gives his mother bad news, if he gives his father bad news, the look in their eyes will stay in his mind and he might lose the game against the Penguins because all he can see is their eyes, huge and looming, while he's looking for the puck. If he doesn't score, if he doesn't make shots, if he's not a fucking star—well, well, well. "I'm concerned about you," Ike says, which is also true.

Kyle groans and puts a forearm over his eyes. Hidden, Ike furrows his eyebrows, because this isn't progress. This is regression. "Whatever, Ike."

"I do."

"Sure."

"Why the fuck would I be here if I didn't?" Ike says sharply, dropping all pretenses. "I could be banging four models at once right now, Kyle, I'm the most famous fucking hockey player in the world. And instead of that, I'm here by your sickbed. For the second time in five months."

Kyle says nothing.

"People care about you, you asshole," Ike continues. He digs his fingers into his hands. Ike's only gotten into two fights in his entire career: once where somebody knocked Tucks flat on his back and threw him into the fencing position, and part of a pile-up to defend his goalie at the time. "And you just walk all over us. You're an asshole. Fuck your illness. You're a goddamn _asshole_."

"I thought hockey players had better insults," Kyle says, bile in his voice.

Ike could slap him across his face.

"Stan and I are going to set up you up an appointment with your doctor, and you're going to tell them you haven't been taking your meds, and you're going to ask for a referral to a therapist. I'm going to make reservations at the Crane. You're going to get out of this bed and _do something._ " And on that note, Ike gets up off the bed and leaves the room. He does not shut off the light.

The thing is, Ike doesn't get to go home right away. He doesn't get to unfold on his couch with a glass of wine and his fire and think about nothing. He has to do what he said he would do with Stan, which feels like pulling a junkie's teeth out, and then he has to go to his parents' house and gives the report. As he predicted, his mother is in the kitchen, a nearly finished yellow scarf in her hands.

"Penguins colors," Ike say at that. "Bad mojo."

"What?" His mother's eyes are tired, bleary. Her hair is gray. Her hands are wrinkled.

"Never mind." Ike takes a seat at the table, and begins his report.

Then, finally, too late, much too late, on streets that are too quiet and drizzling fat snowflakes, Ike gets to drive home.

His empty mansion greets him. The vast rooms, the tall ceilings, the tasteful house plants. Ike had worked so closely with an interior designer that he'd flown in from New York. Ike is proud of them physical manifestation of all that he has achieved. Ike wishes he could remember somebody filling out this space, but even when he had brought Sarah here it felt like they were teenagers hiding out from their parents and laughing at their rebellion, because that's all they fucking were and Ike knows that. Ike sighs. Ike doesn't bother with the whine, just goes to the plush white couch, and falls facedown, still in that two-thousand-dollar suit that he'll have his assistant take to be dry-cleaned in the morning because now it smells like Kyle's bed which smells like Kyle's crotch.

Maybe Ike should get a dog.


End file.
